


Dyin' for this blood-stained land (marching to Zion)

by WaifsandStrays



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, F/M, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Issues, Genderswap, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-19 23:00:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaifsandStrays/pseuds/WaifsandStrays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time something died at her hands, Jace Wayland knew she’d never live to see thirty. </p><p>(Or in which a few things have changed, but most things haven't.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dyin' for this blood-stained land (marching to Zion)

**Author's Note:**

> I really don’t know where this came from… e.e I was just tooling around in the genderswap tag on Tumblr and I saw some swapped MI/ID casts and thus the bunny was born.
> 
> A note on Alex: I didn’t know when I started writing this that she was going to have gender dysphoric tendencies. I’m not trying to accurately portray gender dysphoria or even say that she 100% has it! Just that she has tendencies. I’d like to write a fic entirely about those tendencies of hers to be honest but I’m not sure I could do it justice. Comments on what I did wrong or how to improve are always welcome. I apologize if anyone was offended or felt I was indelicate in handling the issue.

The first time something died at her hands, Jace Wayland knew she’d never live to see thirty. The rush, the white hot edge of danger that sent adrenaline singing through her veins, was too addictive. She rolled away from the corpse, staring up at the scrap of New York sky visible between buildings, and laughed. Jace ached down to her bones, pain zipping through her over stretched muscles, but she ignored it. Lying there, eyes closed like one dead, she could almost pretend she could see the stars.

 

Alex’s father had wanted a boy for his oldest child. Her mother tried to pretend it wasn’t like that, that Robert just didn’t know how to relate to his daughter now that she was older. It was a lie. Alex wasn’t a boy, something she was painfully reminded of every time Jace slipped away from her side to flirt and fuck in the shadows, but she could try to be.

She cut her hair short, worked out until her curves melted into ropey muscle and sinew. She wouldn’t ever be a fairytale beauty like Jace but that was fine with her. Cinderella didn’t fall in love with Belle anyway, not when there was a handsome prince around.

 

Simone stared at the people – Shadowhunters, they’d called themselves – grouped around the table. Clay was leaning unconsciously into Jace like a sunflower followed the sun. Isaac and Alex were bickering in the time honored tradition of all siblings and Simone felt suddenly, sharply aware of her own separation in this world. She wasn’t an angel hybrid or even an especially gifted human, she was just herself.

Clay jerked his head up and gave her that same startled smile he’d given her for years. The one that said he’d forgotten all about her and for the first time she could remember, Simone didn’t smile back. This wasn’t like when Clay forgot her in favor of the world inside his head; this was a real place with real people who weren’t her and Simone had no place in it.

 

Isaac’s bedroom was black. Clay really hadn’t seen that coming and it reminded him just how much he missed his room at home. Isaac was nearly a foot and a half taller than Clay so looking for clothes that would fit him in the other boy’s admittedly impressive closet was an exercise in futility. Clay wasn’t sure what made him ask about Alex’s sexuality but he would never ever forget the pain on Isaac’s face when he did.  
Isaac, who was so self-assured and proud, hunched in on himself. And Clay realized that maybe Isaac wasn’t exactly who he pretended to be, that maybe he was more scared than anyone Clay had ever met before.

 

Simone wasn’t like any girl Isaac had ever known. She wasn’t after him for his looks or because he was a Shadowhunter and she liked the danger. She was dancing and talking to him because she could and it was just one more foreign concept in a truly fucked up week. Isaac wasn’t dealing well, honestly, and he didn’t blame Simone one bit for getting irritated by it.

He could have blown off his sister’s hurt feelings and Jace’s puppy dog devotion to Clay with a few drinks and a dance. What he couldn’t forget was the way Simone’s eyes strayed to Clay every other minute and the way she would jerk her eyes back to Isaac with so much fucking guilt in them that it made him ache.

Girls had always lined up out the door for a chance at him and the one person he’d shown more than a fleeting interest in wasn’t even interested in him back. This week was just full of surprises.

 

Downworlders weren’t to be trusted. Alex knew that philosophy well, had been raised on it, but she hadn’t really believed it until then. She had her hands balled into fists as she stalked ahead of the group towards the subway station. There was a fleeting touch on her elbow as Isaac drew even with her. He was still wobbling a bit and she had to squash the urge to steady him. It was his own damn fault he was drunk anyway.

“I thought you’d like her,” her brother said softly. “Get to be friends.”

Alex would have laughed but somehow she didn’t think it would have come out right. “I have friends.” She forced herself to keep looking ahead. “Besides, she’s a Downworlder.”

“She told you to call her.” Isaac frowned. “You should.”

Alex dug her nails tighter into her palms. “Asked me to call and didn’t give me her number. Yeah, she seemed real into me.” Alex brushed past her brother and into the station. She didn’t need some cut rate warlock anyway. She had her family and that was what mattered.

 

Clay Fray had grown up. Magnus couldn’t believe her eyes, probably wouldn’t if she didn’t already know just how cruel time could be to mortal things. He hadn’t gotten much taller but then his mother was short as well. Already she could be seen in the sweep of his cheek and jaw. Magnus pulled herself out of her musings with a blink. Vampires, they had woken her from a drunken sleep to ask her about vampires. It wasn’t her shining moment.

As the blonde blathered about responsibility and Clave law, Magnus found herself watching her. Jace Wayland and her parabatai had brought memories of another matched pair surging up from the inky depths of Magnus’ long life and she couldn’t help but mark the similarities. One drew the eye like a moth to a flame while the other burned with their own quiet pride, a dark star to a supernova.

Magnus shook off the cloying fingers of remembrance and told them where to find the vampires they were searching for. She shut the door on Clay’s thanks, suddenly unable to look at the pair of them. Mortal, exquisitely beautiful for all their brevity, and Magnus was so very tired of fleeting beauty.

 

Jace was no stranger to kissing boys. In fact, she prided herself on her ability to know when a boy wanted her and to twist that longing into something she could work with. Clay, however, was something of a mystery. He didn’t ignore her hints exactly but he wasn’t bringing anything of his own to the table either. She wasn’t sure why she’d brought him up to the garden except that it was his birthday and birthdays were supposed to be special. Jace didn’t really have anything special to give him but the garden. Once upon a time, it had belonged to the Lightwoods but with the younger generation’s allergies, it had become Jace’s.

Clay had tripped over some innocuous thing and before she knew it, they were kissing. Lightening, like the thrill of the hunt, ran through her veins and Jace had a moment of triumph. So he did want her. She was on familiar ground once more. Corridors raced by in a blur of motion and his back was against the door while she attacked his mouth once more. Clay didn’t see the door open, but she did. Simone looked young without her glasses; however the pain in her eyes was anything but childlike.

Jace pulled away from him like she’d been burned. Clay was looking between them, forming excuses with an anxious face. Jace curled her arms over her stomach, ignoring the feeling churning under them. It wasn’t something she was used to, feeling sympathy for another person, but when she watched Simone slam out of the Institute a bit later, she felt it keenly.

 

 _When’er this mortal journey ends; Death, like a host, comes smiling to the door._ Dying wasn’t peaceful. It wasn’t a white light and feeling like everything bad that had ever happened to you didn’t matter anymore. It was hell. It was the world bleeding away in lines of red and black until all that was left were shadows. Alex wanted to find the idiot who wrote that and show him the sharp end of one of her arrows.

The world blurred once more around the edges as she was pulled from the backseat of the van and carried inside. Hodge was talking to Isaac whose voice was taking on that hoarse quality it had when he was trying not to cry. Jace wasn’t saying anything at all. Alex laughed a little, choking on the blood clogging her throat. Jace set her down with the same exaggerated care she’d scorned all her life.

 **Don’t start treating me like a girl just because I’m dying** , she tried to say, but words were already too far gone. All there was left was the feeling of being hollowed out inside and a dry cool hand in hers.

 

Clay stared at the remains of the mirror in front of him. Father, the label had been as alien on Valentine as sister was on Jace. His stomach rolled and he had to look away. He’d kissed his sister – fallen in love with her if he was being honest with himself. Valentine had looked at them both like they were science exhibits at a museum, something strange and a bit revolting to be gawked at and then hurried away from.

Jace wasn’t moving. She was just staring at the place their father had been standing with vacant eyes. She looked, for the first time since Clay had been thrust into her dark and dangerous world, afraid. He tasted ashes and copper in his mouth, sharp and acrid like fear and love and the whole jumbled mess. He wanted to protect her, to rage at her, maybe even for one horrible moment to strike her. There were a million questions and only one real answer to all of them: he hadn’t cared.

He hadn’t cared enough to ask about her family, her past. He hadn’t cared enough to look deeper into their connection, deeper into how he felt about her. And now it was too late. They’d be bound together forever, better or worse, richer or poorer, and he would have given everything for it not to be so.

 

Isaac wasn’t a panicky person. He was the more emotional of his siblings, the most likely to fly into a rage and do something he’d regret later, but he wasn’t one to freak out. He believed Hodge when he said he was getting help for Alex because Hodge had been with them for years. He trusted Hodge almost as much as he trusted their parents. But it had been over an hour now and Hodge hadn’t come back.

And Alex was getting worse. Her normally pale skin was now a sickly yellow, bruise colored shadows under her eyes and her nail beds were turning blue. Isaac had seen enough corpses to recognize the body systems shutting down. He gripped her hand tighter, feeling the worst sort of helpless.

She’d always been his voice of reason, talking him out of his stupider stunts. Who would do that if she was gone? Jace was half mad as it was and losing her parabatai wasn’t likely to make that better. Isaac swallowed hard and leaned half over her.

“Don’t you dare leave me, Alexandra Giselle Lightwood. You know how stupid I get. I’d be there with you in a week.” Isaac choked out a laugh. “You can’t leave me and Jace alone. You just can’t.”  
For the first time since Isaac could remember, his sister didn’t wrap him in her arms, didn’t smile and kiss his forehead and tell him not to worry. She was utterly still. He gave into his childish impulses and climbed up on the bed with her, laying his head on her chest. He’d count her heartbeats, every last one of them, and maybe, when it was over, they’d have an answer for him as to why his sister had to die.

 

That was how Magnus Bane found them. Wrapped up together like Hansel and Gretel in the witch’s cottage and she couldn’t help the subtle tugging behind her ribcage. She didn’t have time for sentiment however so she kicked the boy out and got to work. Healing the body was the easy part but rousting the girl from the underworld? Alexandra was dug in like a tick. She plied her with sweetness and promises, gentle coaxing reminders of family and loved ones left behind. Alexandra remained stubbornly out of reach.

“Listen to me,” Magnus hissed after two hours spent in the void. “I know you feel like no one understands you and it’s never going to get any better. It’s all very tragic and I appreciate that, but if you think for one minute I’m actually going to let you die, you’ve got another thing coming, you stubborn little twit.”

A flicker of interest from the other side of the veil and Magnus smiled a bit. “That’s right, darling. Come on back.” She could almost feel the girl’s palm, rough and calloused, in hers. Magnus kept on crooning entreaties and offers until she’d called Alexandra’s soul firmly back to her body.

Blue eyes flickered open then narrowed. “You called me a twit.” The voice was gritty but Magnus found herself enchanted anyway. The hand beneath hers twitched and Magnus drew back with an easy smile. She opened her mouth to say something else, excuse herself maybe, but stopped when cold fingers latched onto hers. Alexandra was drifting off into unconsciousness again but she managed to whisper, “Stay.”

Magnus should have gotten up right there, should have left and never looked back. It was the sensible thing to do after all and she’d sworn after the last group of Nephilim that she’d gotten tangled up with that she’d be more sensible about mortals from then on. Of course, when one looked and dressed as fabulously as Magnus Bane, how often could sensible really be applied?

 

In the end, Jace supposed, life went on. She and Clay were at least talking now. Alex wasn’t dying anymore – for which she was eternally thankful to Magnus Bane – and everything was going back to normal. Or it should have been. She wanted it to. But there were only so many hits a girl could take before she just crumpled and Jace had already been pretty dented up to begin with. Clay was coming again today. He’d ask her to go visit their mother and maybe this time she would, just to make him smile for even a moment.

She guessed she was like their father in that respect. She loved forever, even when she shouldn’t, even if that love destroyed the loved one in the end. But she would try, for Clay’s sake, to love him like a sister. Even she couldn’t be that selfish, couldn’t destroy him just because she didn’t want anyone else to have him. Jace would be better than Valentine, she would prove him wrong.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m contemplating doing the whole series and maybe the Infernal Devices which is why I left certain pronouns ambiguous ;)  
> Feedback is welcomed here or at my tumblr kibumunnie.tumblr.com!


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